Matter, Making & Testing: Designing with Next Generation Precast Concrete

Catalog description

This seminar will focus on precast concrete and specifically its history, materiality – how it is manufactured and the logistics of its assembly - and cultural affects through both its traditional uses within the urban environment as well as new approaches to building typologies such as housing. Through a strategic industrial partnership with a precast manufacturer, students will gain access to places where precast concrete is made, formed, and put into action. Students will utilize the school’s fabrication equipment to produce course work and will have access to the industry partner's state-of-the-art facility where they will 1) learn about the precast concrete manufacturing process; 2) be exposed to the fabrication process from material selection to formwork production, pour, and disassembly; 3) utilize facilities and the precast workforce (a group of professional engineers and concrete experts) and work in student teams to produce panel prototypes for wall assemblies that respond to structural, thermal, and water-proofing performance; 4) receive feedback from NEP’s expert staff on the construction feasibility and applicability of student-proposed prototypes; 5) Develop a delivery workflow utilizing digital tools to communicate with and transmit panel, assembly, and formwork concepts to the industry partner, fostering a collaboration opportunity for students that is not regularly experienced in architecture school.